We all have reality TV shows that we love, that we program into the DVR to make sure we don't miss a single moment of. And we have the ones that, to our minds, are meh. So, what's the key to the ones that seem to hit the mark?

The answer, it would seem, is preparation — preparing a situation with careful planning and careful casting and seeing what happens.

"When you throw interesting people into an interesting situation," says Keoghan, "out of that can come great moments. And when you cut those great moments together, we call it reality."

"You have to look for a natural narrative in the behavior that you tape and find," Lakshmi agrees. "You don't know who's going to freak out at the challenge, you don't know who's going to shine, you don't know who's going to get into a fight. So you have to be able to find and follow the drama, as Phil said, you have to create an opportunity for it to flourish and blossom."